Italic languages facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Italic
Ethnicity:	Originally the Italic peoples
Geographic distribution:	Originally the Italian peninsula, parts of today's Austria and Switzerland, today southern Europe, Latin America, Canada, and the official languages of half the countries of Africa.
Linguistic classification:	Indo-European Italo-Celtic ? Italic
Proto-language:	Proto-Italic
Subdivisions:	Latino-Faliscan (including Romance) Osco-Umbrian (Sabellic) Venetic? Sicel? Lusitanian?
ISO 639-5:	`itc`

The Italic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family. They were first spoken in Italy. The main language was Latin, which eventually turned into the Romance languages spoken today. The Roman Empire spread Latin to much of Western Europe. Today, the main Italic languages spoken are Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. There were other branches of Italic languages besides those that came from Latin, but they are all now extinct.

Images for kids

Main linguistic groups in Iron-Age Italy and the surrounding areas. Some of those languages have left very little evidence, and their classification is quite uncertain. The Punic language brought to Sardinia by the Punics coexisted with the indigenous and non-Italic Paleo-Sardinian, or Nuragic.
Map showing the approximate extent of the centum (blue) and satem (red) areals.